The Group A influenza pandemic that affected the entire world in 1918-1919, killed roughly 13,000 people in the state of North Carolina alone. This event exposed the deficiencies of North Carolina's public health system and motivated the creation of a more effective network of public health agencies by the mid-1920s under the direction of Dr. Watson Smith Rankin. This movement was supported by increased public funding and established support for a permanent public health system.

During World War I between 1916 and 1918, four North Carolinians served in French aviation forces and all were killed in action. Arthur Bluethenthal, James Baugham, Kiffin Rockwell, and James McConnell were either members of the Lafayette Escadrille, La Fayette Flying Corps, or Escadrille 98 during the war. In letters to their families, the pilots describe the driving force that inspired them to join the French Foreign Service as a combination of idealism and a wish for adventure.

This article examines the history of North Carolina's Bingham School, a private classical academy that ran from 1793 to 1928. During the school's first 80 years, it focused on a classical education while fending off claims that a more practical curriculum was needed. It was claimed by headmasters up to 1873 that classical study remained central to the training of a Southern gentleman and expressed the conservative nature of South both politically and socially.